Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: garden, nature, textures

Sure, my purple hyacinth bean vines have nice flowers & seed pods. But the also have great leaves with some very striking veining. Perfect for another “natural” Texture Tuesday!

Categories: garden, nature

You’ve seen snippets of my little back porch from the other side… but here’s the “front” side as seen from my kitchen window. Sure, I might have a bit of a rusty metal addiction… but the climbing purple hyacinth bean vine sure seems to be happy with it. Loving the colors & textures of the coleus plants… and a little bit of a gourd plant working its way through!

Categories: artists, collaborations, handbuilding, studio, textures

I always love a good studio process shot… like these sweet cups coming along in Cory McCrory’s studio! Looks like they now have bottoms… moving along nicely for our collaboration project!

Categories: bike

So then THIS happened.

For some reason, it has been overly difficult biking for the past few months. Just harder to pedal than normal. Kind of a dragging feeling. I just wrote it off to covid weight gain, laying on my sofa for the past year, or maybe just a bit of apathy?! But as we got further into our biking season, I was still dragging behind everyone else?! Finally on a recent ride, my friend Chris noticed that my back wheel was out of true. Wobbling as I ride. I took my bike into the shop to get a cleaning & a simple wheel alignment… and the shop mechanic found THIS!!! I had actually broken a spoke out through the wheel. Ouch!!! Nothing fix-able… so I had to buy a whole new wheel!

Luckily, my bike is rolling along much smoother & faster these days!!! WHEW!!! Glad it wasn’t just me…

Categories: clay, summer camp

When new clay meets “graveyard” reclaimed clay during Summer Camp!!! So my wheelthrowing campers “recycle” their bad & shmooshed pots by slightly drying them out on plaster bats and then wedging them back together with some new clay! Looks like it might be another Marbled Monday!

Categories: art fair, artists, collaborations, textures

So here they are… sweet textured cups by my pal Cory McCrory. Getting one step closer to our collaboration coming together for ART IN THE GARDEN!

Categories: art fair, artists, collaborations, handbuilding, textures

So it looks like my pottery pal & “collaboration cohort in crime” Cory McCrory has been working in her studio making some parts & pieces for our ART IN THE GARDEN collaboration project. I love her handbuilt pieces with wonderful textures & whimsy!

Can’t wait to see how these pieces come together… and now I guess I need to start making MY part of the collaboration too, huh?!

Categories: flowers, garden

Bright colors poppin’ on my back porch.
Beautiful colors & textures on this sweet coleus plant…
so vibrant, so colorful.

Categories: flowers, friends, soda-fired, stamped, vases

Fresh flowers in one of my stamped & soda-fired square vases. Looks like Rhonda’s latest visit to the Farmer’s Market has helped fulfill the destiny of this two-sided vase! Thanks for sharing Rhonda… and for brightening our day!

Categories: sunrise

Cloudy & windy… not the best start to the day.
Still fun riding with the tailwind & splashing waves all around.
Not so much fun riding back home into the wind!!!
Pedal harder… pedal faster!